ADELAIDE has been narrowly beaten by Melbourne for the title of the world’s most liveable city ... again.

Adelaide was listed at number five, behind Melbourne, Vienna, Vancouver and Toronto.

The annual Liveability Ranking from the Economist Intelligance Unit assesses 140 cities in 30 factors across five categories: stability, healthcare, culture and environment, education and infrastructure.

Replicating last year’s results, Adelaide was ranked fifth in the world, with Melbourne in top spot.

Lord Mayor Stephen Yarwood saw the ranking as an opportunity for the city to sell itself to the world.

“Of course those of us that live here already know what a wonderful place it is to live, work and spend time but what I love about the result is that it tells the rest of the world as well,” he said.

According to the ranking, Adelaide trails Melbourne in only two categories: culture and environment, and infrastructure.

Last year Mr Yarwood said major infrastructure works including the Victoria Square, Rundle Mall and Adelaide Oval and the Riverbank redevelopments put Adelaide “in a good position to vie for the top spot”.

However, the city’s infrastructure score didn’t change over the past 12 months, coming in at 96.4 out of 100. Melbourne, Sydney and Perth all achieved 100.

“For qualitative indicators, a rating is awarded based on the judgment of in-house analysts and in-city contributors,” the report states.

“For quantitative indicators, a rating is calculated based on the relative performance of a number of external data points.”

Adelaide has finished fifth in each of the past three years.

Again repeating last year’s results, Sydney claimed seventh spot and Perth took ninth.

Canadian cities Vancouver and Toronto and Austria’s capital Vienna rounded out the top five.

Only 20 of the 140 cities surveyed have seen changes to rankings over the past year.

Damascus in war-torn Syria was again named the least liveable city.

Port Moresby in Papua New Guinea was ranked as the third-least liveable.